


nails that catch and mouths that bite

by holding_out_for_a_reunion, justsomethingmiraculous



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cursed, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-05-29 01:23:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15061991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holding_out_for_a_reunion/pseuds/holding_out_for_a_reunion, https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsomethingmiraculous/pseuds/justsomethingmiraculous
Summary: Shion shoved away from Nezumi and turned around.He didn’t pay attention to where he was going as he took a few clumsy steps forward, furiously scrubbing at his mouth. Blood kept pouring from his lips, mercilessly bringing him back to the reality of his situation—to the foolish bargain he’d made five years ago.The bargain that would soon be fulfilled.Or: Five years ago, Shion made a bargain to save Nezumi's life. But all debts must be paid.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare/gifts).



The only thing memorable about Kronos was the lake. Down the dirt path in the woods, past a tiny brook and a hollowed out tree filled with tiny woodland creatures, it was perfectly round at the edges, smooth as a mirror on the surface, and said to be more than two miles deep at the center.

The bottom of the lake was rumored to be the home to a palace made of pearls and gemstones, gold and silver, and more wealth than a human could spend in a single lifetime. None could retrieve those treasures, however—all who had tried washed up on the banks as bloated corpses.

As far as Shion knew, the lake had always been there. Punched into the earth as if it'd been wished into existence. And no matter what occurred around it—harsh winter winds, destructive hurricanes, the first arrival of humans in the previously untouched forests—the lake had never changed.

The lake did not change during the dry summers, when Shion and his friend Safu wandered down the dirt paths in sweat-dripping shirts and trousers, swinging picnic baskets and recalling favorite book passages they'd been reading throughout the weeks.

The lake did not change when merchants came to sell their exotic wares in the town center, or when self-proclaimed fairy-hunters came to boast of their skills.

The lake did not change when a wolf cub had been slaughtered by a careless hunter, and the town nearby was bombarded with a week-long, mid-August hailstorm as punishment.

The lake had remained the same when Shion's friend Nezumi, ten years old at the time, took a handful of rocks from the fountain in the town square, tossed them into the mirror-smooth surface, and told the beasts beneath the surface to "fuck off".

No matter how much the nearby town of Kronos had transformed—expanding with the rapid growth of human citizens, fortifying the structures with pebbles of iron and steel, or decorating buildings with ash tree bark and blessed sage to ward away the worst of the monsters—the lake had always remained the same. The one constant in all of Kronos. A blight that would never fade.

When Shion was little, he and Nezumi made paper charms to keep the monsters inside the lake and out of the forests. Reckless with childhood naivete, Shion swore up and down that, when he was bigger, he and Nezumi would keep the monsters away forever. Nezumi would just snort and tell Shion not to be stupid, but he would continue weaving the paper charms with his long, delicate fingers all the same.

Once Shion was older, however, he stopped making paper charms.

He stopped talking about defeating the monsters.

He did not venture into the forests or wander near the lake unless it was as part of a large horde. And even then, he still couldn't bring himself to look at the silver sand surrounding the lake without remembering the stench of rotten leaves, the moist feeling of a hand wrapping around his ankle, the splatter of red blood dripping down Nezumi's arm, and the dark promise Shion had made under the light of the harvest moon.

At seventeen years old, Shion hadn't come close to defeating the monsters.

And now he was more than certain he would never get the chance to.

\--

Shion sat waiting at the edge of the road with his legs outstretched. The ground was damp with early morning dewdrops. He didn't worry about his feet getting run over; he never worried about trivial things like that. He had bigger things to worry about. He was older now—older than he'd been when he'd made a bargain with evil.

Looking out into the forests today, however, Shion hadn't thought about the creatures that lurked beyond. Like all the other men, women, and children of Kronos, Shion had grown up surrounded by the cursed forests. He'd given up attempting to fathom what lived in its depths. He knew well enough.

Most children became obsessed with one of the High Folk at some point in their lives. Shion didn't blame them. The unseen effigies in the stories were too fantastic, too awe-inspiring to simply ignore. Magic was too amazing to forget. Sometimes the children asked foolish questions: _Does Maiden Dark actually live on the moon? Does the Drenched King take little girls to the bottom of the lake? Can the Lady of the Forest look like anything she wants?_

The answers they were given were more frustrating than nothing at all. The adults tried to protect the children, shushing their curiosity and warning them that speaking of the High Folk invited trouble. But sometimes the adults let information slip without thinking. A woman who sold healing herbs in pretty glass jars claimed that some of the High Folk were good while others were wretched, and if you managed to find favor with one of the good ones, you would be truly blessed.

Shion watched wagons, pulled by muscular black workhorses, bump their way over the dirt roads. The merchants were arriving from out of town to sell their wares to the townsfolk of Kronos. Shion liked it when the merchants came. He enjoyed looking at all the items that came from beyond the ridge—fancy oils in bottles, books with leather bindings, hammered ornaments intended to bring favor from the gods. He especially loved the spices and pastries the bakers brought with them. He preferred his mother's baking above all else, but it was nice to branch out.

As the wagons rumbled their way through the thin streets, Shion wondered what their first thoughts about Kronos were. The looming haze from the forests on all four sides hung above the town, an eternally approaching thunderstorm. Stilts, spikes, and barbs jutted up and out from the buildings and the large fence surrounding the whole place. Kronos was only accessible through a single gate, woven through with thick iron charms and baubles that had been blessed by a devoted priestess back when the town was new.

Often times, when the merchants packed up and left, Shion wondered if they could sense the fear.

Kronos was a town full of people who were afraid. People who felt unsafe even in their own beds. Vulnerable all the time. Terrified to the point where it had become the norm. No one in Kronos would ever admit to being _afraid_ of the High Folk. To be afraid was to invite the monsters.

On the outside, Kronos was much the same as any other town in the world. Plow horses dragged wooden tills through the harvest fields. Stray dogs roamed the streets, and a tiny street urchin tended to them like he was part of their family. Each face was familiar, every name memorable after a moment of pondering. Kronos was just another run-of-the-mill town in the middle of nowhere.

Except that it wasn't. People in Kronos hung iron shilling charms from their porches. They kept pitchers of fresh cream in their iceboxes and little ceramic dishes on their steps to appease the smaller Folk. Sometimes a woman might wake up and find knots in her hair. Other times, a man's boot laces would be replaced with ribbons and moss would have grown on the soles overnight. Little pranks that, at best, were mildly aggravating.

Outsiders were worse. The merchants sometimes spent the night in their little wagons—and sometimes, the bad Folk did things to them.

It wasn't uncommon to find a corpse on the edge of the gates. Throat slit, eyes bugged out as if, in their final moments, they'd witnessed something truly terrible. The more fortunate victims might wake up covered in dirt and worms, their wares trashed and splintered to pieces.

Shion figured it should have been enough to frighten the other merchants away for good. To mark Kronos as a place of evil where no one would ever venture. But the haunting occurrences had the opposite effect. Folks came from all over just to see if the rumors were true. To catch a glimpse of the supposed High Folk who walked in the forests. To kiss the stones where the good Folk had run their fingers in hopes of gaining eternal favor. Magic was too amazing to forget. The prospect of eternity was too intoxicating to a starved mortal soul.

Ever since Shion's encounter with true evil, he'd stopped asking questions about the High Folk. Often at night, however, he would be overwhelmed by the memory. He could taste the dirt on his tongue, smell the maggots and rotten flesh, hear the hiss of that damning voice. He would wake up from horrible nightmares and, if Nezumi were spending the night, Shion would watch him. The old woman's words came back to him, then—about the good Folk and the bad. Shion had already met one of the very bad ones.

Feeling desperately alone, Shion would watch Nezumi for a long time until his chest ached with the prospect of loss. When that happened, he would slide off his bed, his feet padding across the cold floor. He would lay beside Nezumi, press his stomach along the curve of Nezumi's spine, and listen to the strong pounding of Nezumi's heartbeat.

"What's wrong?" Nezumi would slur sleepily, and Shion would shake his head because he couldn't say anything. He _couldn't_. Shion would then wrap his arms around Nezumi's stomach and, too exhausted to think otherwise, Nezumi would intertwine their fingers and fall back asleep. Shion always went back into his own bed before sunrise. And if Nezumi ever remembered waking up in the middle of the night, he never voiced it.

Beneath the buttery sunlight, Shion ran his fingers over the ground. He felt the grooves against the pads of his fingers, the dip of hooves and wagon wheels and the heels of countless human boots. Sometimes he thought he could feel the low hum of magic, remnants of where it had seeped into the earth itself.

The leaves of the trees on the edge of the forest were bright yellow, as though they'd swallowed the summer sunlight and kept it stored for the approaching winter. The rest of the forest never changed from the dark emerald green—another apparent blessing from the High Folk—but Shion loved to see the few that did change. The flames of color that licked their way through the cursed enchantment. Proof that there was something out there besides the High Folk, besides the monsters that held Kronos in the palms of their hands.

It was easy enough to forget about the High Folk and dark bargains on a day like today. The whole town was in a commotion as merchants arrived and the townsfolk prepared for the harvest. Men marched toward the fields with new scythes. Women leaned out of their cottage windows, tossing fresh loaves of bread into large baskets near their front doors.

Shion lifted his head and spotted Safu's gentle figure cresting the dirt road as she returned from bringing her grandmother's shoes to the cobbler for repair. As Safu came down the road, the sunlight caught on the loose strands of her auburn hair.

Safu was soft in a way that no one else in Kronos was. She kept her hair unbound when all the other girls tied theirs in pretty braids with pink ribbons. She was lovely in a soft sort of way—like one of the watercolor paintings Shion had seen on one of the merchant's booths a few months ago.

Safu stopped in front of Shion. The town of Kronos had always looked at Shion a bit strangely—an uncommon other tolerated only because he hadn't caused them any worse misfortune than the High Folk. Some of the older women thought Shion might have been blessed by one of the Folk when he was still growing in his mother's womb. His coloration alone was enough to set him apart from the other boys. Where all the other children had dark hair, Shion's was vacant of all color. Winter-white, the glistening of the first star at night.

Shion's eyes were unsettling: an inhuman scarlet that flickered as if they were charged with lightning. Shion could see the shock on the faces of the merchants when he visited their booths, the initial flinch that accompanied the realization that the rumors about the Folk might be true.

His skin was pale regardless of how much sun he absorbed. The only spot of color on him was an odd scar—a birthmark that began beneath his left eye and wrapped around his body like a constricting serpent. The mark was cool to the touch, no matter how flushed Shion's skin became. Often times he wondered if it was a mark that had been placed on him by one of the High Folk, and, if so, what could it mean? It couldn't have meant that he was blessed. He never would have made a bargain with evil, if that were the case.

Shion had no idea where his coloring had originated. He'd possessed it from the moment of his birth. He had heard rumors from some of the village women that when he was pulled into the world, the midwife had attempted to steal him and return him to the forests. " _An offering to the Lady of the Forest_ ," she'd insisted as the armed men serving as soldiers returned Shion to Karan's trembling arms and hauled the midwife away.

"Hi, Shion!" Safu shifted in place, her boots kicking up small plumes of dust. She wore a loose skirt today, her legs unblemished and pale. Her grandmother had bought her a concoction of wheat flour and lavender oil a year ago for her birthday, and Safu used it sparingly.

Shion's own legs were long and thin, but that didn't make him tall. He twisted his ankles back and forth, admiring a scuff on the toe of his brown boot. He'd had the same pair of the past year and a half, and he suspected he'd officially stopped growing.

Shion squinted through the sunlight and asked, "Did your grandmother give you permission to go to the bonfire?"

"She said yes," Safu replied. "Now your mother will _have_ to let you go!"

Shion laughed. "Then you should try and convince her." Shion's mother loved Safu, almost like she was the daughter she never had. There was little that Karan didn't let Safu get away with.

"You're probably right." Safu's lips were thin and pink, like little rose petals. She had a bad habit of chewing them, sometimes to the point of bleeding. "Don't worry. I'll do all the talking." Flashing him a brilliant smile, Safu reached down a hand to help him up.

Shion took Safu's hand—her skin was cool and soft to the touch, her fingers long and her nails bitten down to the quick—and allowed her to pull him off the ground. He brushed the dirt off the back of his trousers.

Safu threw her arm around Shion's shoulders, both of them roughly the same height. Together, they tromped down the dirt road, passing by the women in their filthy blouses and brown skirts who toiled in their gardens. Women in Kronos worked as hard as the men, and children were often expected to help carry the weight, too.

Heading toward Karan's bakery, Shion and Safu passed a cluster of pigs who snuffled in their pens. A little brown goat rutted his head against the wooden fence as they passed, and a large cow grazed on the grass in her own little field, a lazy look in her big brown eyes.

They passed by a long row of houses, tiny wooden boxes with thatched roofs. Some of the buildings were on stilts: fortified safe houses with ladders that could be pulled up inside during raids that had never occurred, or when floods struck the little town. Shion had never witnessed a flood in Kronos, but the adults liked to be prepared for the worst. Living in a world of High Folk kept them on their toes at all times, constantly preparing for famine and strife, should the mood of the High Folk turn against them.

The second building from the end of the residential street was the tiny bakery Karan called home. A tiny ladder on the side led up to the living space Shion had known his entire life. The first floor housed the thick oven and wooden shelves where Karan displayed her pastries. Shion's house always smelled of flour and cocoa beans, a scent that comforted him even when the worst had happened.

There wasn't much to distinguish Karan's Bakery from the other houses and building in Kronos aside from a little wooden sign that hung above the doorway. The wood was so warped that it was nearly impossible to read the looping lettering. The only other distinguishing feature about the bakery was the lack of iron shilling charms on the windows and above the doorway. Karan kept a ceramic bowl on the doorstep like all the other houses—but sometimes she accompanied the honied cream with little blueberry muffins and cakes heaped with sugar.

Despite the horrors lurking throughout Kronos, Shion loved his mother's bakery. There were two bedrooms in the living space. Shion had the larger one, as his mother figured he needed more space when Nezumi spent the night. Sometimes, if Shion sat very still, he could see the little dusts of feather fluff floating in the beams of light, reminding him of when he and Nezumi jumped on the mattress as boys and entire clouds of feathers would explode around them.

Karan was home, busying herself in the bakery's tiny kitchen. Working over the stove, she hummed to herself, lost in thought. Her long hair was pulled into a loose bun and trapped beneath a plain white handkerchief. A few strands hung free, clinging to the nape of her slender neck.

When Shion was little, he'd assaulted his mother with endless questions about the High Folk. Karan had grown up in Kronos, and unlike the other men and women, she didn't seem to fear them. She had a healthy respect for their powers and understood that it was better to avoid them than arouse their attentions, but she kept laying out treats for the smaller Folk to gobble up in the night.

Shion and Safu swept into the bakery, the little bell above the door jangling as they did. "Hullo, Mom!" Shion called, his boots dipping into the footprints beaten into the old wood floorboards.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. K!" Safu's skirts billowed around her knees as she wafted over toward the pastry counter. Her eyes brightened at the little cherry cakes cooling on one of the plates. They were her favorites.

"Are you two thirsty?" Karan flashed them a brilliant smile, pouring out two mugs of water from the icebox. She sweetened Shion's with a spoonful of honey and sugar, but Safu had no need of it. "Are you two helping out at the harvest this evening?" She handed the cups to them.

Karan didn't need to participate in the harvest because she had a small garden of her own to tend to. With her own business, Karan was busy seven days a week. Like all the other busy men and women in Kronos—blacksmiths and cobblers, locksmiths and seamstresses—Karan busied herself in service to others.

Karan went back to stirring the contents of a large bowl Shion had purchased for her last year from one of the merchants. It was her favorite piece of cookware. It had a low-seated belly that could hold several dozen muffin's worth of batter and raw eggs. It was one of Shion's better purchases, and he felt a surge of pride every time he saw his mother using it.

Shion stepped next to his mother and peered into the mixing bowl. Inside was a hodgepodge of dry flour and several eggs, and the scent of lemon struck him in the face like a gust of wind.

Safu perched on one of the low benches and chatted with Karan while Shion set to work helping his mother roll dough and pour pitted cherries into the bowl of batter. Karan sent him an appreciative nod and busied herself with pouring the batter into little pans that could withstand the heat of the small oven she had tucked away in the corner of the bakery. All the windows were open, allowing the thick crush of heat and the rich scents of fresh citrus to disappear outside.

Safu's talking filled the dead air. Shion listened to the droning sounds of her words, the rhythmic snapping of the wood beneath the oven, the sounds of his mother's skirts rustling against her legs as she fluttered around the kitchen.

Surrounded by the comforts of home, Shion allowed his mind to wander. He was going to miss this. His mother's ultimate dream had been for Shion to take over the bakery and run it as his own, but Shion knew it would never come to pass. And the worst of it was the knowledge that he couldn't prepare Karan for that day. He couldn't tell Safu how much he appreciated her tireless friendship before it was too late. He couldn't tell _Nezumi_ —and Shion's face flushed at the realization that he didn't have the first clue what he would tell Nezumi even if he could.

"It's so nice to have you both here," Karan remarked, her gentle voice slicing through Shion's thoughts. "Shion, could you wrap those cakes up, please? And Safu, see that bowl of berries on the sill? Yes. That one. Bring that here, would you?"

"All right, Mrs. K." Safu deposited the bowl beside Karan and took the pan from her hands. She flitted over to the oven, popped the pan inside, and shut with with a quick snap of her wrist.

Shion took the pieces of clean white cloth from beneath the table and wrapped the cherry cakes up in them. "Are these for the harvest, Mom?" The warm scent of butter and the bitter twinge of cherries drifted into his nose.

"Actually, those are for Nezumi." Karan gestured to the mixing bowl and to the pan stuffed into the oven. "Those are for the harvest. You're planning to help out, right? Would you mind bringing them down when you go? And Nezumi's, too. I'm sure you'll see him there."

"Nezumi was _here?_ " Shion hated the way electricity spiked across his scalp, the tingles of excitement that spider-walked down his back. He glanced over his shoulder as if the boy in question would materialize out of the woodwork. It wouldn't be the first time Nezumi snuck up on him.

Karan kneaded a new pile of dough between her delicate hands. "He stopped by about an hour ago. He said something about needing a quick getaway to somewhere he wouldn't get a headache." She cast a fond look around the bakery, devoid of charms and paper wards.

"Speaking of Nezumi," Safu began. "We're going to be leaving for the harvest in a little while."

"And some people are staying afterward..." Shion added, trying not to look or sound too excited, lest his mother grow suspicious.

"For this little bonfire," Safu finished with a flip of her hand.

Karan gave both of them an odd look. As unconcerned as she appeared with the High Folk, she didn't mess around with them. And staying outside at night was a rather dangerous venture in Kronos.

"Nezumi will be there," Safu supplied, and Shion didn't say anything because it was probably true. Nezumi hadn't mentioned the bonfire, but when there was mischief to be found in the town of Kronos, Nezumi wasn't too far behind. The bonfire seemed like an ideal place for him to be this evening.

Karan processed the one concrete bit of information she'd been given. "Nezumi will be there?"

"Yes," Shion said.

Karan shot him a quick look. "And you're not going to stay out until dawn?"

"I'll be home late," Shion said, "but no, I won't be out all night." He pursed his lips for a moment, seeing the indecision in Karan's eyes. After a moment, fearing she would tell him _no_ without an extra nudge, Shion added, "Nezumi will walk me back."

Safu cut him a quick look, but that seemed to placate Karan. "All right," she said, returning to her mixing bowls and the pan of uncooked pastries in the oven. "In that case, then go ahead."

"Thank you!" Shion shot his mother a brilliant smile. He ignored Safu's expression, ignored that he might have just lied to his mother. He had permission to to the bonfire tonight. He didn't have much longer before things would go wrong—he was determined to enjoy every bit of his remaining time on this earth. Even if it meant filling that time with promises he couldn't keep.

\--

"I can't believe she said yes!" Safu hurried down the dirt road with two baskets hanging off her right arm. The still-warm pastries for the harvest were nestled inside beneath two pieces of clean pink cloth, and the scent of cherries and buttery bread followed her like a trail.

Shion carried his own basket, tucked full with the cherry cakes Karan had set aside for Nezumi. Shion had wrapped each of them carefully so they wouldn't crumble to pieces in their gentle wicker bedding.

"I think mentioning Nezumi helped," he murmured. Karan had a distinct fondness for Shion's other friend. Shion felt just a bit guilty having played on that fact, but there was a good chance Nezumi would be at the bonfire. And Shion didn't doubt Nezumi would walk him home afterward if Shion asked nicely. And he had the cherry cakes as an added incentive.

"Mentioning Nezumi was smart," Safu allowed, "but it was risky. What if Nezumi _isn't_ there tonight?"

"He will be," Shion said, in the same casual tone one would use to describe the color of the sky.

Safu opened her mouth to speak again—probably to inquire as to what Shion would do if Nezumi wasn't there—but a voice cut through the town square: "Safu! Don't tell me you packed your _entire wardrobe!_ "

Safu's friend Anne stood beside the gurgling stone fountain, her hands on her hips. Her glorious red hair was pulled back from her face, tucked beneath a purple kerchief with a little golden pin pushing her bangs out of her eyes. There was another girl behind her, dressed in a simple white dress, and a tall boy with golden hair and a goofy smile on his face. Safu's other friends: Betty and Roy.

Safu shifted her pack self-consciously in her other arm, and Shion belated realized it was bulging. He hadn't noticed when they'd stopped by her house. Shion had been too distracted by Safu's grandmother, nestled in the little rocking chair near the window. Safu's grandmother adored it when Shion stopped by. And Shion liked the old woman well enough to tolerate her ramblings while Safu shuffled through her little bedroom and gathered the supplies she would need for the harvest and the bonfire afterward.

"What did you pack?" Shion asked.

"Blankets," Safu replied. "And other things."

Anne sauntered up to them and gave Safu a once-over. She scowled, knowing that Safu liked to plan ahead for every possibility—even if those outcomes were utterly unlikely to occur. "Well," she said, sticking her nose in the air with a haughty jerk of her shoulders, "don't expect _me_ to carry it for you when you get tired."

"I'm quite capable of carrying my own things," Safu replied, just as firmly. She and Anne were equally stubborn, and Shion often wondered if that was why they got on as well as they did.

"Then don't go asking Shion to carry them for you, either." Betty came forward then, a tiny strip of shadow amidst the dirt and sunlight of Kronos.

Shion thought all three of Safu's friends looked good together. Anne was the taller of the two girls, but she was still shorter than Roy. Her hair was a beautiful shade of scarlet—not orange or pale brown, but the same glorious crimson as Shion's eyes. Her freckles were faint, little spots on the wing of a butterfly. Between the loose skirts, blouses, and shawls she wore, it was obvious to Shion that Anne knew how beautiful she was and that she planned to use it to her advantage.

Betty, on the other hand, kept the ties of her dresses painfully tight and hurried to adjust them if even an inch of flesh bellow her collar caught the sunlight. She was pretty in a classical sort of way. Her hair was a dark shade of blue, catching the sunlight and showering the air around her with little rainbows. Unlike the other girls in the town, Betty kept her hair short, cropped to her skull and just beneath her ears.

Roy was one of the more well-liked young men in Kronos. Tall with blond hair and big eyes that nothing snuck by, Roy had caught the attentions of almost every girl in Kronos at one point or another. His heart belonged to Anne, so much so that, three months ago, their parents had agreed for them to be married in the Spring. Roy was the opposite of Anne—quiet and polite, but not without his own hardness. It was difficult to sway Roy once he'd set his mind to something. Anne and Roy were a good match, Shion thought. Anne was the sharpness of the blade, but Roy was the hand that guided it to the right place.

Once all five of them had gathered together, they headed out through the town gates and up the hill toward the fields. They quickly fell in with the parade of men with their harvesting tools, the women with their baskets and blankets. Kronos felt wide awake for the first time in months, the anticipation heavy in the air. Even the worst of the High Folk couldn't ruin a night like the harvest.

Shion glanced out at the forests while Safu and her friends chattered about the merchants and their exotic wares. Anne had her heart set on a pair of bracelets made of hammered bronze, and Roy had agreed to purchase them for her if she worked hard during the harvest. Shion squinted through the line of trees.

A pale face peered back at the crowd of men and women marching for their fields. Tiny, the round cheeks of a child. from this distance, Shion couldn't see the child's eyes, but he imagined nothing reflected back in them. Not the humans in Kronos. Not the endless green of the fields. Not the clouds in the sky.

As if sensing Shion watching, the child turned and vanished. A moment later, Shion spotted a little red fox scampering through the wood. It darted over a bush and wiggled into the shadows of the trees.

Nothing uncommon in Kronos. It wasn't strange to see a girl transform into a deer, or to find a wolf wandering with a wicker basket in its muzzle. Sometimes a bird would sing songs in words that sounded distinctly human, and other times a child would crawl through the forests on hands and knees and yap like a dog.

Shion had learned to ignore the smaller Folk. Much of the time they were harmless. Shion knew the stories about the High Folk. He knew all their names and the signs that signaled their arrival. Maiden Dark snuffed out all traces of light when she approached. The Worm King's wailing could be heard miles before he arrived, although it was often difficult to hear above Mistress Thunder's storms. They usually came as a pair. And the Lady of the Forest—her arrival was heralded by the stench of rotten flesh, the taste of dirt, and the wriggling of maggots.

There were others. Countless others. Good and awful. Shattered Mirror. The Bleeding Priest. The Lord of Black. The Drenched King—but Shion had seen the King murdered with his own two eyes, his pale throat crushed beneath a pair of hands that should have been too little to commit such an awful act.

Something shifted suddenly. A pulse of electricity in the air, like the approach of a storm. Shion and Safu and her friends had passed by a small cluster of boys their age, and Shion spotted a flash of black amongst their ranks. His breath quickened. He pressed his lips in a line to try and fight the inexplicable surge of happiness that bubbled up from within him. He peered right through the other boys, his focus narrowing down to the figure standing toward the back of the group, separate despite his proximity to them.

 _Nezumi_. He was taller than most of the other boys by at least half a head, and though Shion wasn't tragically short by comparison, he sometimes felt like he had to crane his neck just to look into Nezumi's eyes.

"Shion, what are you—" Safu looked over and, spotting Nezumi, she came to an abrupt halt. "Oh. He actually is here." She set her lips in a thin line. She shot a quick glance at Betty, who seemed to tuck herself behind Safu's shoulders, as if Nezumi wouldn't spot her there.

Shion only vaguely understood Betty's discomfort around Nezumi. Nezumi was...different from the rest of the kids in Kronos. In fact, Nezumi was different from the rest of the people in Kronos. He had long, dark hair that he usually kept in a ponytail. Shion had only ever seen it down a couple of times, when Nezumi slept over at his house. It looked sharp as blades from a distance, but it had been soft when Shion had run his fingers through it. (Not that Nezumi knew about that, of course. He'd been sleeping at the time.) Nezumi was pale and tall and slender, with sharp features and long fingers and a voice that was so beautiful it almost sounded like he was singing all the time.

But what struck Shion the most about Nezumi were his eyes. Nezumi's eyes were silver. Not a human gray, or the pale version of blue and green that sometimes faded in the sunlight. Silver. Nezumi's eyes were like two coins in his skull, polished and flashing and always observing. There was almost nothing that escaped Nezumi's notice. There were times, especially recently, when Shion felt like Nezumi's gaze would actually cut him.

 _No more blood oaths_ , Shion thought, tasting that phantom brush of mud and maggots beneath his tongue that no amount of honied water ever seemed to wash away. _I've made too many of those already_.

Nezumi looked like no one else in Kronos—well, except for one person. But she was no longer here. Sometimes it was easy to forget that she was most likely dead, or at least spirited away to some foreign plane of existence that could never be reached by humans.

Nezumi was a changeling. He'd been left behind when a baby girl (whose name had been forgotten by the men and women of Kronos, though some people, on the rare occasions she was mentioned, called her "Eve") had been stolen away by the High Folk.

Changelings were a rare occurrence in Kronos. The terror-gripped town generally went out of its way to placate the High Folk to avoid having their children taken in the middle of the night and replaced with monsters. During the harvest months, farmers set aside baskets of fresh apples and berries for the Folk, but hung iron manacles around the rest of their crops to deter greedy fingers and mouths. Each winter, fresh portions of meat were left on the edge of the forest for the Hildebear, the Lady of the Forest.

Shion had woven charms to keep her away when he was little. The Hildebear lived in the forests and seemed to keep the town of Kronos hostage. The townsfolk knew to fear her rotting claws. A fool could be lured into the forests at the sound of her voice.

There were rumors that the Hildebear could be summoned out of the forests with a singsong chant and a blood oath. Sometimes kids in the town square would chant portions of the song, for it required the entire sequence to call her through the iron buildings of Kronos.

On the outskirts of the forest, down a twisted path that led from the creek and wove through a series of gnarled trees that never died or grew, it was rumored that the Hildebear would come and bargain wishes to anyone brave enough to seek her out.

One of the little boys had done it several years ago on a dare. He'd asked for a kiss from the "prettiest girl in Kronos", and offered the Hildebear _anything_ in exchange for it to happen. He was a young boy, foolish and naive to the dangers of making deals with the High Folk. The Hildebear never appeared before him, but he'd gotten his kiss. And then the next day, he and his parents were walking down the dirt paths in town and were struck by a merchant's wagon, whose horses had gone mad with terror, frothing at the mouth and wailing. The boy and his parents hadn't survived.

Deals with the Hildebear, Shion had learned, were not to be taken lightly. To get something, one had to exchange something of equal or greater value. Giving up _anything_ was meant literally to the High Folk. The Hildebear was not kind—and she could not be trusted.

Nezumi broke away from his group and wandered toward Shion. Shion's heart hammered at the sight of him, the same way it always did. He wasn't certain when he'd begun to notice Nezumi the way he did now. An exaggerated awareness of him. A thrill at his attention. Plenty of women and more than a few men found Nezumi unspeakable attractive, but Shion's attraction toward him bordered on something else. Something he'd never been able to put his finger on.

"What's in the basket?" asked Nezumi, reaching out a hand for the covered pastries Shion kept tucked in the crook of his elbow.

Shion twisted away from him, and Nezumi's fingers brushed against the curve of his spine. "Mom said they're for you," he said, a playful lift in his voice, " _after_ you're done working."

Nezumi lanced Shion with a fierce silver glance. "That's a lie. Your mother would never make me work for food." He made another grab for the basket, but Shion took several long steps away from him with an almost giddy laugh.

"She said she wanted to give you some incentive," Shion remarked, "so you won't leave me to do all the work on my own."

"There are people everywhere." Nezumi gestured to the flock of men and women roaming toward the fields. Some of the men had their scythes strapped across their backs with thick leather cords. "You're not going to working alone."

"No, I'm not." Shion switched the basket to his other arm. "And if you want these pastries, you're going to help me."

Nezumi sniffed at the air, then narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "What kind of pastries?"

"Cherry cake."

"Fuck." Nezumi threw his hands up with an over-dramatic sigh. " _Fine_. I'll help."

Shion's lips drew back in an involuntary smile. Anne and Roy had lapsed into a private conversation. Safu had turned her full attention to Betty, who kept cutting glances at Nezumi as if he would suddenly dart out and rip her in half. She'd known Nezumi for years, and yet somehow, she couldn't see past what he was.

Shion frowned. He understood that Nezumi wasn't like the other men and women in Kronos. Nezumi was not human, despite his looks, and his false parents had not known. Kiki and Souta Hirano, the man and woman who believed Nezumi was their child, had come from another town. Kiki had been curious about the rumors surrounding the High Folk and the forests of Kronos. She and her husband traveled to Kronos with the intention of staying only long enough to spot one shred of proof that the rumored beasts existed.

It had taken three years for Kiki to realize that the child sleeping in the crib, eating food from her table, and singing songs with her in the town square was not her child.

The night before she and Souta planned to leave Kronos, Kiki sent her husband to the fields with the other men and stayed home. She'd been asking dangerous questions, anything she could learn about the High Folk. She'd heard of changelings, and she'd heard rumors of how to dismiss them and get her own child back.

Kiki brought Nezumi into the living room and sat him down in front of the hearth. She put salt around the rim of the floorboards, creating a small circle around Nezumi. He'd watched her and hadn't said a word. He'd never known he wasn't human, and he had no reason to believe that his mother's bizarre behavior had ill intent.

Nezumi had watched as Kiki used a pair of pliers to jam an iron nail into the fire. He'd had an aversion to iron as an infant, but both of his false parents had chalked it up to allergies.

Once the iron nail had heated up until it was red hot, Kiki grabbed Nezumi's wrist, held him in the place, ignoring his confused question of "Mommy?", and jammed the metal against the bare skin of his back.

Shion had heard enough rumors from the neighbors. An old woman two houses down claimed to have heard a little boy shrieking so loud that the glass in her kitchen windows trembled.

Burning a changeling was meant to summon its parents. Kiki pressed the nail into the curve of Nezumi's back again and again. There had been a smell like grass being thrown into a fire, several neighbors had said, and it had never left that building.

No one knew why Nezumi's real parents never came to fetch him. Kiki drove the iron nail into his back again and again, creating twisting scars that discolored his spine. Shion had seen them once, when Nezumi had borrowed a change of clothes to spend the night in.

According to some of the rumors, the man and woman found gutted and half-devoured by a bear on the outskirts of the forest had been Nezumi's biological parents. They'd been found two days after Kiki Hirano attempted to dismiss him. The corpse of a human toddler was found dragged along the path, her black hair gnarled and knotted with twigs and leaves, her left arm severed at the shoulder. When someone had attempted to move the bodies, however, they'd crumbled into ashes as if they'd been burnt from the inside out.

The Hiranos didn't get their child back. Kiki forced her confused husband into the wagon and headed for the borders of Kronos, leaving a wailing changeling toddler in the middle of their cottage.

Less than half a mile from the edge of the forest, the horses pulling the wagon dove straight for a tree. Souta's head bounced off the iron railing, fragmenting his nose and popping his eyeball like an over-rotten melon. He'd been killed instantly. Kiki was thrown over the edge. She was found the next morning tangled up in the branches, and her legs were found ten yards away from the crash site. Both of the horses had survived, tearing into the depths of the forests with their bridles and harnesses still intact.

Nezumi was accepted, or tolerated in some cases, by the older citizens of Kronos because he had not deserved the punishment his false parents had given him for the accident of his birth. The other children never questioned his strangeness, and none of them were surprised by the way his ears tapered into points, or the unnatural silver of his eyes, or now he could pick up scents as well as a bloodhound.

Shion had approached Nezumi despite the fact that he was nervous around him, and though Nezumi could be blunt and cruel and downright rude at times, he was one of the best friends Shion could have wished for.

Nezumi knocked his shoulder into Shion's, startling him out of his memories. "Hey, quit spacing out. Safu and the others already went ahead."

"O—oh, right." Shion shifted beneath the afternoon sunlight. The warmth in the air spread across the fields like a blanket. Setting pace beside Nezumi, Shion took off for the fields with the rest of the townsfolk. Just a little bit of work, and then he and his friends would be free for the night.

And in Kronos, a night free from the High Folk was everything.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! We're back. Had some rather unfortunate things come up and prevent us from updating, but now that the worst of it's over, we're hopping right back into it. This chapter's a very short one, but hopefully it'll be enjoyable. The other chapters will be much longer and more interesting, we promise. For now, however, enjoy a journey into the madness that is Shion's brain.

It was still early enough in the afternoon that the sun cast a glorious golden glow on the wheat fields. Throughout spring, the fields had been a place of legend. A glorious land where anything could happen. A breeding ground for mischief and mayhem, for the Folk to hide and enchant and lure foolish townsmen into their eternal servitude. The men and women of Kronos seemed almost nervous at the prospect of wandering out and cutting the glorious stalks of wheat down—but there was work to be done. It was nothing to take lightly, the prospect of starving in the winter. The harvest couldn't be ignored simply due to fear of the High Folk.

Shion watched as several of the men waded out into the fields with their pants hiked up around their knees, toeing carefully in case they happened upon any of the iron bear traps placed within the stalks to deter greedy hands and mouths. When Shion was a little boy, he'd heard stories about a few men who'd wandered drunk and naked out into the wheat fields to catch the favor of Maiden Dark. They'd been found in the morning with the ankles caught in the traps. Their trapped feet had needed to be amputated. They had gained no affection from the Lady of Eternal Darkness.

Safu and Betty had wandered several feet away from where Shion and Nezumi stood. The prospect of Anne's wedding in the Spring had been a topic of conversation for them since Anne first announced it. Shion couldn’t say he was at all surprised. Weddings often made folks wonder about their own futures, romantic or otherwise. Like most of the other young adults in Kronos, Safu was of a marrying age, but so far, to Shion's knowledge, none of the boys in the village had propositioned her.

The boys in Kronos tended to avoid Safu. And Safu, in return, never turned her favor toward anyone except her closest friends. Shion had known her since he was old enough to walk, and although he enjoyed her company, he had to admit there were times when he understood how difficult it was for her to make friends. It had taken her months to warm up to Nezumi. Safu never seemed interested in any of the boys their age. Even if one of the village boys had sought her hand in marriage, Shion suspected Safu would likely just laugh and slam the door in his face.

For that matter, Shion hadn't received any requests from any girls or their parents, either. None of them had ever looked at him with anything more than politeness. No secretive glances. No simpering pouts. Nothing at all like the looks people threw in Nezumi's direction. Shion supposed it should have bothered him, as it would bother any other boy in Kronos, but it just...didn't. The girls were nice enough and all of them were pretty in their own way, but Shion had never imagined himself married to any of them.

When he and Nezumi were children, Nezumi looked enough like a girl that Shion had once promised they could trick the town priest into marrying them if Nezumi wore a dress. Nezumi had laughed and called him an idiot. " _That's not a no_ ," Shion crowed, and Nezumi tossed a fistful of dirt into his face.

Now that Nezumi was older, there was still a feminine quality to his appearance—but much of the time, it was lost in the other-worldliness of his features. The distinct difference that reminded everyone that he wasn't human in the slightest. His sharp eyes that flickered like blades in the sunlight. The angled sweep of his cheekbones and the pallor of his skin that made him appear to be fashioned of marble. Shion knew every girl in Kronos thought Nezumi was devastatingly handsome, but none of their parents would ever allow their daughters to marry a changeling.

Watching the men and women of Kronos working was like being detached in a pretty dream. Shion followed the swishing of skirts around the women's slender legs, the shifting of the men's shoulders as they heaved their tools and moved the harvested wheat into the awaiting baskets. Shion knew this dance well. He'd been seeing it since he was old enough to assist in the fields. It was a dance for survival. The continued reminder that, unlike the creatures stalking through the forests, the townsfolk were mortal. If the harvest failed, winter would exterminate them.

 _The Hildebear would never allow that_ , Shion found himself thinking, although the thought didn't give him any sort of comfort. _She enjoys tormenting us too much to just let us all waste away_.

In addition to harvesting the wheat, the young unmarried men and women used this time to seek out future partners. The girls twisted their skirts to expose their slender legs and adjusted their breasts in their corsets. The young men smoothed down their hair and made sure their trouser cords were tightened. Today was not a day for embarrassment.

For most of them, at least. Nezumi stood amidst the sea of golden stalks, a dark strip of shadow in the afternoon light. He folded his long arms across his chest and watched the townsfolk bustle through the fields in search of food and spouses.

"Please tell me," he said, blowing a loose strand of hair from his face, "you're not going to turn into a simpering idiot like those two."

Shion glanced over toward Safu and Betty. Anne was already spoke for, but she continued to scan the crowd of young men on the off-chance someone “better” came along. Shion knew she wasn't serious in her jests, but he found them unpleasant. Roy never seemed to mind the savage quips, but Shion couldn't help the twinge of irritation that lanced through him whenever Anne made her little comments. If he were in Roy's position, he wouldn't have found them funny.

"Not this year," Shion replied, the same answer he gave Nezumi every year.

Nezumi raised an eyebrow. They were thin and dark. "No one catch your eye all year?" He gestured toward Safu, who was shaking her head as Betty giggled at one of the boys who bent low to the ground several feet away. "How about Safu—you two seem pretty close."

Shion shot Nezumi a sharp glance. "That's not funny."

"I'm not joking." Nezumi shrugged, as if it was obvious why he would have made the suggestion. "Safu's not interested in anyone. _You're_ not interested in anyone. It makes sense. You two can be uninterested in people _together_."

"Knock it off," Shion said, but there wasn't any bite to it. He'd spent enough time with Nezumi to recognize his tone when he was kidding, even if his jokes weren't always the funniest. "And what about you? Anyone you're interested in this year?"

Nezumi shrugged. "Doesn't matter if I am, does it? I'm not for sale." He held his hands up, palms to the sky, and gave Shion a dangerous smile. Dangerous because of the thrill that it sent through the pit of Shion's stomach.

He saw the town authority and harvest overseer, a portly older man named Rikiga, coming toward them with a scowl on his face. Shion thumped the back of his hand against Nezumi's shoulder, and then they trudged out to the fields and set to work.

Raking the wheat into piles for drying, Shion glanced over at Safu and Betty and wished he could share in their excitement. It must have been nice to feel giddy about the prospect of a future. Shion had given up on his own several years ago. He'd made a bargain he could never escape—there was no point in wishing for a future.

" _No less than three, no more than seven_ ," that rotten voice purred in his ear, a tongue licking up the shell and into his hairline. It took all of Shion's willpower not to crumple to his knees and empty his stomach into the grass. " _And then you're mine_."

Shion yanked one of the stalks of wheat and dropped it into the pile. He swayed close to the ground, glancing over at Nezumi from the corner of his eye. Nezumi was like no one else. Dangerous—the searing crimson at the bottom of a flame. Even performing the most mundane of tasks, Nezumi was hauntingly beautiful.

Shion edged closer to him. Rikiga marched around the fields, barking orders at the townsfolk and instructing them to not dally. Shion wondered fleetingly whether or not Rikiga worried about the High Folk. As a village authority, he was often held accountable when things went wrong. When a woman went missing, people asked Rikiga why he did nothing to stop it. When a child woke from a nightmare only to discover that three whole months had passed, people asked Rikiga why he didn't seek out the High Folk and ask them to stop. Shion felt for him. Rikiga seemed rough around the edges, but Shion didn't doubt that he was a good person beneath it all. And he supposed that he, too, would become bitter if the town blamed all their misfortunes on his mundane inability to keep creatures much stronger than himself in check.

When the harvest hit its peak, work became more important than idle chit-chat. Shion watched Nezumi rip wheat from the ground, depositing it into piles with the other men and women. He was diligent in his work, as proficient as any of the other humans who flanked him.

Shion instinctively leaned closer to him. He felt safe around Nezumi. Nezumi made him forget that he was living on borrowed time. Shion wanted to tell him how important he was—but he knew he never could. Shion drowned out the sounds of Rikiga barking orders and commanding several of the young boys to focus on the task at hand rather than make ridiculous faces at the girls they fancied.

Shion struggled to focus on the task at hand. It became methodical after a time. Snapping wheat stalks and setting them aside took some effort, but it was the same task again and again, sweltering beneath the late afternoon sunlight. Nezumi was buried in his work, diligent despite the look of profound boredom plastered to his face.

As time went on, the women came and wandered between the men. When long, swishing skirts weren’t in the way, Rikiga was doubling back and monitoring the steady progression of the harvest. Shion could only catch a few glimpses of Nezumi through the thick crush of human bodies. Dark hair yanked back away from his face. Pale, beautiful skin that never burned or darkened no matter how bright the sun shone. Elegant fingers that were just a bit too long.

Shion had always been drawn to Nezumi. As children, it had been innocent curiosity. Nezumi was a changeling. An inhuman other nestled amidst the average mundane existence of everyday life. Shion himself was no stranger to the attention being different could attract, and sometimes he wondered if his friendship with Nezumi had blossomed from a need for understanding. He was different. Nezumi was different. Perhaps they could be different _together_.

Now that Shion was older, he still found himself drawn to Nezumi, but it was...different. His thoughts were no longer so innocent. The mere sight of Nezumi still left him breathless and giddily happy, but for an entirely different reason.

But longing to be near Nezumi was a curse Shion had to suffer rather than a gift he could cherish. Often times when reality struck him upside the head like a dull sword, Shion wished Nezumi didn’t make him feel the way he did. It wouldn’t hurt that way. Shion wouldn’t curl up beneath his covers and lament his own stupidity, nor wish he had found _another way_.

Shion felt the same dark, creeping dread crawling up his back. Long-legged spiders of doubt and loathing trailed along the notches of his spine, invisible prickles skirting along his skin. Shion was lost in this wretched feeling when Nezumi looked over at him. His silver eyes met Shion’s over the shoulder of one of the harvesters, a tall young man with a splash of freckles across his nose and throat. Nezumi paused, graceful in his movements in a way humans lacked, his expression betraying none of his thoughts.

Shion looked away immediately. He bent over and wrapped his hand around a thin brown stalk of wheat. He ripped it up out of the ground. Sunlight beat down around him, stinging his skin. Shion did not look up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **To Be Continued...**


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for being patient with us! This chapter is a bit on the short side again, but the next chapter will be longer (and hopefully up later this evening or early tomorrow. We are hard at work on it now that we have some time!)!

Down by the clearing, close enough to Kronos that the human villagers felt safe wandering out to it, a middle-aged woman in a loose blue dress plucked fistfuls of white feathers from the rump of a dead chicken. She tossed them into a large wooden bowl, setting them aside as an offering for the Folk. It was common knowledge that the lesser Folk enjoyed decorating their clothing and hair with bird feathers, and the citizens of Kronos offered them up in hopes of dissuading fey mischief.

The village women were roasting large hunks of seasoned meat over a roaring fire. The scent of fresh herbs cut through the air in a gloriously thick haze. The familiar warmth and smells of the harvest had brought them back to their lives before the High Folk—before death and mayhem and eternal imprisonment at the hands of a primal queen.

Shion watched several older men set out enormous wooden barrels filled with wine and fermented honey. The barrels were well-worn and rubbed smooth from years of continuous use. Shion remembered when he and Nezumi had been little children, when Nezumi had found a river sprite taking up residence in one of Karan’s water barrels. He’d dumped the whole thing out on the street and laughed as the tiny blue-skinned woman chittered at him like a furious mouse.

The barrels were large enough to fit a small child, and it wasn’t rare for the lesser Folk to call them home. More often than not, the Folk kept to themselves, hiding from the humans rather than wandering in plain sight. Shion always checked the barrels back at his mother’s bakery before taking a drink from them. Sprite sweat was highly toxic, and young children had fallen deathly ill from a few cupfuls of water in which sprites had decided to bathe.

Several men and women were playing music—on flutes and drums and large pipes that made reedy whistling sounds. The Folk were drawn to music, and sometimes the citizens of Kronos dedicated ballads to the Hildebear in hopes that she would show them mercy through the winter months.

Safu ate in time with the music, swaying her head gently back and forth. She had already eaten two small hen legs and was working her way through a third. Anne enviously eyed Safu’s slender waist, and then glanced down at her own wide hips.

“That’s unfair,” she said, taking a bite of a shiny red apple she’d pulled off one of the trees. Shion didn’t bother trying to tell her it wasn’t safe to eat things straight from the forest. There was no telling which of the High Folk had claimed which trees for their own. A simple action such as plucking a fruit, even a halfway rotten one, from a tree branch could be a death sentence if the wrong creature had decided it belonged to them.

There were large benches surrounding the bonfire built in the middle of the clearing. The wood had faded to an ashy white from countless decades in the sun. Stains of berry juice (or rather, Shion _prayed_ it was just berry juice and not something more grotesque) coated the surfaces in freckles of dark crimson. Shion had found a comfortable spot on the edge of one close to the warmth of the fire. The early autumn air sent chills through him, ever since the sun began creeping toward the horizon, and he knew eventually he would need to drag his warmer tunics out from storage.

“ _Will you?_ ” purred a dark voice in his ear. “ _You know you’re not going to last that long_.”

Shion shook his head and chased away the wicked thoughts.

Glancing over toward the assemblage of men and women, Shion caught sight of Nezumi’s dark hair. He was deep in conversation with one of the village elders. Shion recognized him as the locksmith who’d traveled from one of the distant villages and set up shop in Kronos. Rumor had it that he’d once fallen in love with a woman who’d turned out to be lesser Folk. Shion had never seen her, but the locksmith would sit by the edge of the forest and sigh when the birds sang.

“You think it could be a nixie?” the locksmith was asking. His cheeks were bright from the early autumn sunlight, sweat drops beading on his brow.

“It’s possible,” Nezumi said with an indifferent shrug. “Your shop’s stationed near the town well. Nixies are water sprites. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing to happen in Kronos.”

The locksmith rubbed his hands together. “Wet handprints on my windowsill. Child-sized. They’ve been there every morning for the past three days. What could a nixie want with an old fool like me?”

Nezumi nodded his head slowly, not paying attention. Shion had been around him long enough to recognize when his mind drifted away from a conversation. His silver eyes would darken, his jaw would go slack, and he would nod regardless of what had been said.

Shion shook his head with a quiet laugh and watched the other villagers mill about and socialize. The forests made people nervous. Shion made note of the haunted looks on the faces of several parents as they monitored their children from afar. It was said that, not too long ago, someone had been killed by the Hildebear on the night of the harvest. Some said it had been a little boy who’d insulted her. Others said it was a pair of sisters who wandered toward the sound of a woman singing. A couple said it had been a young man who’d been chasing after his lover.

As with so much of the stories surrounding the High Folk, no one knew for certain what was real and what was false. The High Folk had existed for centuries, and their victims knew no end. The men and women of Kronos only knew that the Hildebear had claimed their home, and any one of them could become a target for her wickedness.

“Do you think we’ll see any of the High Folk this year?” Betty whispered around the rim of her water mug. Her dark eyes stole a glance toward the shadowy parts of the trees.

“Don’t let Rikiga hear you saying that,” Anne muttered. She tucked a loose strand of crimson hair from her face, most of it held back by a dark, fraying strip of cloth.

Safu wiped her mouth with the corner of her dress. The threads had come undone, but Shion knew her grandmother would patch it up when Safu returned home. “We’ll be fine,” she said. “As long as no one does anything stupid, we shouldn’t be in danger.”

_Doing something stupid_ often meant provoking a reaction from the lesser Folk. It meant wandering along the edge of the forests looking for trouble. It meant stripping naked and diving into the river. It meant forgetting that the forests were owned by the High Folk, and that the Hildebear held Kronos in the palm of her claws.

“It’s fine,” Anne said. “The High Folk have better things to do than bother with us.” A bald-faced lie, but Shion knew it was a lie Anne needed to tell herself. She worried about the same things all the other men and women of Kronos worried about—vanishing in the middle of the night, or waking miles from home with no memories of the previous evening.

Shion rubbed his hands together and said nothing. He knew all too well that the High Folk had nothing better to do than pester the citizens of Kronos. Harvests were a fascinating time. The prospect of famine and starvation interested immortals. Rot and mortal decay were foreign to the High Folk. The iron charms wrapped around the crops deterred most of the Lesser Folk, but a handful of the braver ones snuck off with fistfuls of produce all the time.

“Yes,” Betty murmured. “It’ll be fine.” She cast a wary eye toward the forest—and then, to Shion’s chagrin, he realized she wasn’t looking at the forest, but at Nezumi.

Nezumi had perched himself on one of the benches closeby. He was deep in conversation with one of the village women, dressed in a plain brown frock. Shion smiled at the sight of him. The bonfire crackled, its golden light flickering across his dark eyes, a beautiful shimmer on his lips. _He’s beautiful_ , Shion thought, the words coming as naturally as an understanding on the color of the mid-morning sky.

“You’re going to sing for us, right?” the woman asked. Her dark hair was tucked beneath a white strip of cloth, a gentle dusting of freckles painted across her nose. “It’s not a proper harvest without a little singing.”

“Ah, no,” said Nezumi, waving his hand and giving her a pleasant smile. It was a forced look, and Shion was surprised by how quickly he could read Nezumi’s expressions.

“You’re too modest,” the woman laughed. “Come along now—it’s not every day we get to hear a _changeling_ sing!”

Nezumi’s expression darkened at the word. Shion’s stomach twisted. Nezumi wasn’t fond of the townsfolk mentioning the fact that he was a changeling. It separated him from them, made him stand out. And Nezumi had never enjoyed standing out—not in _that_ way. Attention was one thing, but the sort of attention that brought nasty looks, whispered rumors, and the occasional rotten fruit tossed in his direction was something Nezumi liked to avoid.

The day had slowly wound to a close, the sunlight beginning to dip beneath the horizon. Strips of golden sunlight transformed the sky into a watercolor of blues and oranges and pinks. Rikiga stood on the outskirts of the ground, watching it all with blank eyes. His expression darkened at the woman’s question to Nezumi. Rumors from the elders had it that changeling song could summon the High Folk, and Rikiga had never been fond of music, in general.

Shion had only heard Nezumi sing once. When he was young. His voice was winding and beautiful. Shion’s heart seized when he thought about it. Nezumi’s singing was haunting and gentle, a sound that wound through the trees and skimmed the surface of the lake. The one time Shion had heard it, Nezumi’s singing had not summoned any of the High Folk. If anything, that was the one time in Kronos where no mischief seemed to plague the entire village.

“I’m going to have to decline,” said Nezumi, plastering a false smile on his face. He waved his hand toward the bonfire, the logs popping and crackling beneath the flames. “Perhaps next year.”

“Boo, that’s no fun,” the woman pouted, but she didn’t press the issue. Something else caught her attention, and with a brief nod, she picked up her shirts and fled to the other side of the camp.

Nezumi’s shoulders relaxed, and he rose swiftly from the bench. He wandered toward the tankards of juice and ale that several of the village women had set out. Shion folded his hands on his lap and drew in a deep, steadying breath. Part of him had wanted to hear Nezumi sing, too. Lifting his head toward the sky, Shion watched the changing colors of the clouds and wondered if he would survive long enough to hear the haunting sounds of Nezumi’s song again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **To Be Continued...**


	4. Chapter 4

"Hello, Shion!" Yamase called from his spot up in one of the tree branches. He scooched to the side and patted the silver bark in case Shion wanted to grab on, hoist himself up, and join him above the bonfire. His dark hair clung to his forehead and the nape of his neck. Dark bruises peppered his throat and collarbone. He looked flushed with alcohol and good cheer. He patted the tree branch again and almost tumbled to the ground.

Shion waved _hello_ to Yamase, but didn't climb up with him. He wanted to, but he never did. He didn't like to sit up too high, lest he plummet to the earth below. He threaded his way through the cluster of young adults, those brave few who had moved away from the adults to have some fun of their own tonight.

Shion was kind to the other young adults in Kronos, but he didn't have many he considered to be good friends. In addition to Safu, Shion really only had Nezumi. Shion had been friends with him since they were little, a couple of years after he befriended Safu. Nezumi made him nervous at first, but Shion had long since grown beyond it. Shion supposed he even had Yamase, even though the two of them didn't really spend time together or talk all that much. Yamase liked to drink and make snide comments about the other boys' dirty little secrets (his cruel nickname for the girls they were interested in), but when he wasn't drunk, Yamase was actually quite pleasant.

That was plenty of friends for him, Shion decided. Too many, actually, given the fact that Shion was doomed to vanish soon, leaving them all to mourn and wonder where he'd gone.

This time of year always made Shion uneasy. It wasn't the end of the month yet, but Shion didn't know if he trusted that he'd last that long. _No less than three years, no more than seven_ —but that didn't mean _exactly_ three or seven years, did it? Shion tried not to think about it. It was late autumn, and there was probably still a bit of time left for him.

It was one of those early autumn nights. The air smelled of green-wood smoke, the richness of wet leaves and slick topsoil. Shion was wearing a dark blue tunic, a clean pair of trousers without holes or patches, and a pair of beaten brown boots. His winter-white hair had been combed, but it still stick up in all directions like dandelion fluff. He had never been able to tame it down. Even so, as he looked in the little mirror in his bedroom to ensure his shirt was clean, Shion thought he actually looked pretty good.

“ _Dressing up for your disappearance_ ,” the wicked voice growled in his ear. “ _How do you want them all to remember you when you're dragged into the forest?_ ”

Shion shook the intruding thoughts away. It didn't matter. _No less than three, no more than seven_. It had been barely five years since he'd made that bargain. It didn't _have_ to happen this year. If the odds were in his favor, Shion would survive the winter.

Anne and Roy had gone off to mingle with the adults, and Safu had tagged along to keep Betty from being left alone in the crowd. Promising Shion she would find him later in the evening, Safu had made Shion promise to stick close to Nezumi and not wander off.

“I _know_ , Safu,” Shion had whined. He secretly adored her mother-henning, finding it an admirable quality that many of the girls her age lacked.

As Shion wandered among the groups of his peers, he spotted Takamatsu attempting to have an intelligent conversation with two of the blacksmith’s apprentices: a petite boy with a bowl-cut named Ōyama, and another boy called Takeyama who insisted on being referred to as "Christ".

Matsushita, the butcher’s son, was laughing with a half-circle of girls all dressed in the same pink skirts. Otonashi, one of the kids who lived close to the town gates, lounged on one of the benches with a young woman pinned to his side. Otonashi was gazing out into the stars as if he'd seen something and was desperate not to lose sight of it. The young woman, Kanade, didn't seem to mind. She looked comfortable in her faded white tunic and a loose pair of black trousers.

Shion looked around the crowd and quickly spotted Nezumi, perched on one of the benches near the raging fire pit. He was laughing at something one of his other friends said, and Shion wanted to go over and laugh with him. Except he also wanted to run over and kiss him, and at the same time he wanted to run home to his mother’s bakery and bury himself in his blankets until the moment he was stolen away.

_No less than three, no more than seven_.

Shaking away the wretched thoughts, Shion wandered towards the log where Nezumi was sitting, deciding that it would be an awful idea to pretend he wasn't here. It wasn't that he was avoiding Nezumi or anything like that—and besides, it wasn't like Nezumi would ever let Shion avoid him without an explanation. He was stubborn, but it was one of the (many, there are just _so many_ ) reasons why Shion admired him. And Shion had promised Safu he would stick close to Nezumi until she returned. And Shion wasn’t one for breaking promises.

Nezumi looked surprised when Shion came up to him. This was no easy task, and Shion felt a momentary swell of pride deep in his chest. It was next to impossible to catch Nezumi off guard.

"Hi," said Shion with a steady smile.

"There you are," replied Nezumi with a laugh. He slid toward the end of the bench and made room for Shion to sit down. "Thought Safu was going to hog you all night"

"She’s keeping Betty company." Shion tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, feeling stupid. He had no real reason to be nervous around Nezumi anymore. _And it's not like I have enough time to do anything about it, either_. "She said she’d come find me later—probably after Anne and Roy walk Betty home. She doesn’t want to be out too late."

Nezumi nodded solemnly as Shion took a seat beside him. “Well, then. Better enjoy your company while I still have the chance.”

Shion knew Nezumi meant it as a jest. He _knew_. But the words sent a jolt of terror through him. Cold and sudden, like an arrow through the spine. Prickles danced along his scalp, the corners of his eyes going gray and fuzzy. _He doesn’t know_ , Shion thought, willing his heart to steady. _Nezumi **can’t** know_. He forced a smile on his face and murmured, “Yes.”

“Decent harvest this year,” Nezumi said with a half-heated shrug. The harvest had been bountiful, a fact which the men and women of Kronos greatly celebrated. Starvation was no joke.

“Mom will be happy,” Shion said. He took the cup of unsweetened cranberry juice perched on the log next to Nezumi's hip. Nezumi never drank much at social functions, primarily because he didn't like the taste of alcohol and it never affected him.

"No sign of the High Folk this season," said one of Nezumi's acquaintances. Shion nodded without much thought on the comment and took a sip of the cranberry juice. Bitter, but it would do in a pinch.

"Too early for comment like that," said Nezumi with an indifferent shrug. "Let's not consider ourselves safe just yet." He reached down for his drink, realized it was missing, and shot an offended look at Shion. "You thief."

Shion took another swig, not because he was thirsty. "You weren't drinking it." He smiled at Nezumi from over the rim.

One of Nezumi's friends was looking at a girl leaning against the trunk of a large tea. He stood up, dumped the rest of his drink down his throat, and said, "Excuse me, gentlemen. But I've got a date with destiny."

"Luck be with you, my brother!" announced one of the other boys. He saluted the first boy, who had already taken a dramatic bow and began making his way through the crowd toward the girl.

Shion felt a chill bolt through him. He pulled his tunic close and tucked in close to Nezumi. He peeked up at the kids chattering around the log, the girls dancing to the music, the kids by the trees drinking things they had stolen from their parents’ liquor supplies.

Shion felt outside of it all. He'd come to have a good time because he doubted he'd be getting more than a few more months at best. _No less than three, no more than seven_. It had been five years, but Shion wasn't stupid enough to think he'd be given the full extent of the deal. He was lucky he'd lasted this long. The High Folk were not a generous lot.

"Don't worry about Safu," Nezumi said as soon as the rest of the group had turned their attentions towards guessing which relationships were going to end in disaster before the year ended. "She's a tough girl. She can handle herself."

"It's just—I get worried about her," Shion whispered. The lies coiled in his stomach like a snake, growing bigger and bigger each day. Lies he could never apologize for. "There's things out there that could hurt her, and I'm concerned."

"Lots of scary things in the woods, too," remarked Nezumi, and when Shion turned to look at him, his mouth twisted into a grin that was just a bit feral and otherworldly.

Rather than frighten Shion, who was accustomed to Nezumi's strangeness, it was like a key in a rusted lock. Something warm and oddly pleasant twisted in Shion's chest. There wasn't a smile in the world that could match the ones Nezumi could make.

Not that it mattered. Shion had no time left. He had too many secrets—too many regrets and mistakes—and even if he _could_ find the courage to tell Nezumi about how he'd been feeling, it would end up in heartbreak.

Unaware of the storm swirling in Shion's head, Nezumi threw his arm around Shion's shoulders and drew him close. "Don't worry, Your Majesty. _I'm_ the scariest thing you'll find in the woods tonight, and so far, you haven't done anything to piss me off, so all's well."

_Your Majesty_. It was a nickname Nezumi had given him in their youth. He'd meant it as something of an insult—implying that Shion was a spoiled, pampered little brat who had no idea how the world worked. Since they'd become friends, however, Nezumi still used it to tease Shion and call him naive, but there was no hostility behind the words.

The familiarity of the nickname caused Shion to blush. He smiled and turned his head towards Nezumi, who was still speaking. Shion hadn't realized how close he'd been leaning into Nezumi until their faces were almost inches apart.

Shion was close enough to feel the warmth of Nezumi's breath against his cheek. He could see the inhuman color of his irises, darkened by the flickering light of the bonfire. Nezumi's arm was still around his shoulder, trapping Shion against his side.

Shion had kissed Nezumi before. Several times, in fact. The first had been on the forehead, as children, when he was afraid that Nezumi's fever would kill him in the middle of the night. The second had been when Nezumi chased a cluster of pixie-sprites away from the picnic lunch Shion had painstakingly slaved over that morning, and Shion had kissed him quickly on the mouth as a reward because he had nothing else to offer. The third was about a year ago, when Nezumi followed Shion to the market and insisted on walking Shion back to his mother's bakery because he "had a bad feeling" about something. Nezumi never explained what the bad feeling had been, and Shion never pried. Nezumi had left Shion in the safety of the bakery's kitchen with a lingering kiss on the cheek.

This felt different than those other times. Shion's heart pounded. It made him feel vulnerable and giddy, the same way he had the day things went horribly wrong. He hated feeling like this because he knew it could never go anywhere.

_No less than three, no more than seven_.

_And then you're mine_.

Nezumi's silver eyes were too bright. His lips were slightly parted. Shion leaned forward without a second thought and closed the small gap of space between them.

Shion's eyes closed as he felt Nezumi's arm tighten around his shoulders like an instinct. The movement pulled Shion closer against him. Nezumi pressed back against Shion’s lips for a wingbeat of a moment, and then he drew away just as quickly.

"Shion—," he started, and Shion opened his eyes to see Nezumi peering down at him with a confused look on his face. His eyes were dark in the firelight. His hair was drawn away from his face, and it cast shadows over his cheekbones. “What was—?”

"I should have asked," Shion interjected, jumping to his feet. His face burned with embarrassment, and the backs of his eyes stung with unshed tears. _Good job_ , snarled the rotten, dark voice in his ear. _You ruined it_. "I'm sorry, Nezumi. I shouldn't have—shouldn't have just done that without even asking you first."

"Hey," said Nezumi, reaching out to grab his wrist. He caught the hem of Shion's sleeve and drew him back towards the log. "It's fine. Stop freaking out."

Shion shook his head.

"It's _fine_ ," Nezumi repeated. He gave Shion's sleeve a gentle tug—which, for Nezumi, meant Shion all but fell in a heap on the log next to him. "Shion. It was just a kiss. Not like we haven't done _that_ before."

Shion nodded. He couldn't say anything. Nezumi wasn't just somebody to kiss. He wasn't another face in the crowd that Shion could forget about the moment he walked away. He wasn’t some merchant’s son who breezed into town one autumn afternoon and then disappeared with the sunlight. Nezumi _mattered_. Nezumi mattered far more than Shion had ever meant him to.

"What's with the face?" asked Nezumi with a laugh. He put an arm around Shion's shoulders and drew him close to his side. Shion flushed at the warmth of the contact, despite the layers of clothes between them. "You wouldn't be the first to be so overwhelmed by my haunting good looks that you couldn't help but kiss me. No hard feelings, Your Majesty. We can just forget it ever happened, if that’d make you feel better."

Shion felt stupid. He didn't want to forget. He wanted to kiss Nezumi again. He wanted to pull him close and take him into the shadows of the forest. _But I never can. It wouldn't end well for either of us_. Shion sunk his teeth into his lip to force down the wave of miserable tears that desperately wanted to come out. He felt angry and useless and, worst of all, like he didn't deserve what little happiness he had. He deserved to be miserable for all the mistakes he'd made.

"Shion." Nezumi knocked their shoulders together. "Did you hear me?"

"Y—yes." Shion fought back his tears and forced a smile on his face. "Yes, all right. Good. We can forget it."

Nezumi kept his arm around Shion's shoulders, but the warm buzz of pleasure that had gone through Shion's stomach had turned cold. He didn't focus on the conversation Nezumi had with his other friends. He didn't focus on the music blasting through the clearing or the arguments that erupted from the cluster of young adults around the bonfire. In the distance, Shion thought he saw the branches shift, like dark fingers reaching out for him, but when he looked again, all he saw were the shadows of a late autumn evening.

“ _You’re mine_ ,” purred the dark voice.

Shion shivered.

“ _Someday soon, child, you’re mine_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **To Be Continued...**

**Author's Note:**

> **To Be Continued...**
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> If you haven't already checked out **nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare** 's new story _human wants_ , go check it out. It's absolutely stunning. Some of the best characterization and description I've ever read.


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